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Wednesday, 31 December 2008

On the wargaming front I have just placed an order for more Baccus austrian napoleonics. This is probably the last such order I'll need to place to get everything Hapsburg finished for Wagram (famous last words).

Sunday, 28 December 2008

I have finally based up the figures painted over the last month or so and counted up what I have left to do to complete the Austrians for Wagram (excluding "what if" stuff).

I think all I have left to do are 10 bases of infantry (500 figures), 3 of cavalry (60-70 figures) and a few artillery bases. Oh, and one or two officer bases. If I push on with these I think that this is do-able in the next 4-5 weeks and should allow time to get the French done in time for Salute at the end of March.

I'll try and get some photos done soon.

I'm also playing about with rules ideas still, join the yahoogroup for more info on those (the yahoogroup is ONLY for rules discussion, I keep all the painting and photo stuff here, on the blog)

Friday, 28 November 2008

I've finally got back to a regular painting routine and have started cranking out more Austrians. Here is the output from the last couple of weeks:and a close-up of some of the infantry (IR#20) with orange facings.

These troops and some more that I have in progress will form the Austrian III Korps at Wagram. I already have the advanced guard finished, so I need to paint up about 100 more infantry and some artillery before moving on to the next formation.

Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Here are some photos from another battle generated by my PBeM campaign set in a fictional 1809. This battle saw a rearguard action by 2 divisions of Austrian infantry, hoping for cavalry reinforcements, being attacked by 3 divisions of french infantry, a division of Bavarians and a dragoon division.

The French were attacking from the West, which is the bottom on the picture below. They initially had to cross the river, which the Austrians elected to leave undefended fir the sake of making a quicker getaway. The first picture shows the action a few hours into the battle. The French have managed to finally get all their forces over the river and deploy them, but in the meantime the Austrians have managed to pull back a long way and are heading for the high ground to the East.

Picture 2 is a close-up of the front lines

and the final shot is taken towards the end of the battle. After about 12 hours hard fighting the Austrians had fallen back some 4 to 5 miles and managed to establish a position on the hill. The heavy cavalry had arrived and threatened the French right, destroying one infantry regiment before pulling back to assist the withdrawal.

All-in-all a successful rearguard action by the Austrians, albeit hard pressed by the French. This one showed that the chaps in white are no pushovers.

Friday, 7 November 2008

This is the battle arising from our campaign, that we fought out this week at the club. Three stages of the battle are shown.

First is the position at the start of the battle at 2.30pm. A corps of three french divisions is attacking the town of Konigstat, which is defended by two strong divisions of Austrian infantry.

The french plan was for their right-hand (better quality) division and the corps reserve artillery to deal with the Austrian left flank, while the other two divisions concentrated on the other flank. The french commander opted to leave the town alone for now.

By 5pm the initial french attack on its left flank had been repulsed and was getting reorganised with the shaken division being covered by its colleagues in case of an Austrian counterattack. The french infantry on the right was slowly and steadily rumbling towards the Austrian left.

The battle was all over by 9pm. The french attack had gone largely to plan and their right-hand division had swept round behind the town to cut the Austrians off from the bridge over the river. The Austrian commander decided to evacuate the town and break northwards to escape. At this point the french lost a bit of their impetus and decided it was best to consolidate their position than risk an exhausting infantry pursuit at night.

All in all a satisfying win for the french. On reflection I think the Austrians could perhaps have had more success by placing some defenders in the town but placing the bulk of their force behind it, forcing the french to either attack the town or bypass it, leaving an Austrian bastion in their rear. On the other hand, the Austrians had chosen to defend a strategically unimportant town with their backs to a river, so perhaps just had themselves to blame...

The game played nicely, and we were all done in about 2 hours including setting up and describing the scenario to the interested bystanders. Roll on next time!

Well, October was a rubbish month on the painting front. I only got a few bases of Austrians finished. I think the roube comes from having enough stuff now to fight club-sized games. This takes away the motivation to expand the armies further. Hopefully I can buckle down and get more done in November.

I have not been idle though! As well as finishing the extra terrain boards I have been running a play-by-email (PBeM) 1809 campaign for a few friends, set in a fictional south-Austrian valley. This has only been going for about a week, but it generated a battle that we fought out at the club this Wednesday and a larger scrap is just brewing elsewhere on the map. I took c acouple of photos of the on-table action and if they cope out alright, I'll post them later.

Once the campaign is finished I'll provide a more complete report and I'll put some supporting materials on the paintingshed yahoogroup.

You might also notice that I have used blogspots new "reactions" feature. This has nothing to do with Sepcsavers of sunglasses, but is a way for you to let me know if blog articles are helpful or interesting and to indicate if you'd like more information on the subject. Please continue to leave comments too - it is nice to know there are people out there actually reading this gibberish.

Tuesday, 28 October 2008

Slow progress on the figures front, but I have been cracking on with a few extra terrain boards in the garage. I don't need this for Wagram or Aspern-Essling but it is good to have some extra "generic" boards for other scenarios. I now have a big hill made from 2 boards in case I ever do Eckmuhl and I have another "S" shaped river board and a river junction board.

Sunday, 12 October 2008

Here is a base where nothig is quite as it appears. The skirmishing Grenz are British Napoleonic Riflemen, the formed Grenz are British Napoleonic line infantry and the landwehr are British AWI in campaign dress. This all adds-up to a base of Austrain light infantry ready to take its place in the advanced guard. The Grenz officer shouldn't really have a bicorne, but I have cut him a little slack and assumed it is his family's "lucky hat"

Next up, a base of line + landwehr and a base of jagers + chevauxlegers.

Wednesday, 8 October 2008

Hi all, thanks to the 30 or so chaps who have joined the yahoogroup to look at the rules, I hope you enjoy them. I have noticed a couple of inconsistencies so I'll put up a clarification next week.

Meanwhile, painting continues. I'm currently working on a few bases of Austrian advance guard-types. These are mixtures of regulars and landwehr or grenzers. I'm away at a conference over the weekend, so I expect I'll be putting up pictures of these next week. I've done some calculating on the back of an evelope and reckon I have to produce a further dozen or so bases of line & landwehr and about the same of line infantry alone. I'll also need s few more cavalry and artillery bases, but I hope to get most of the Austrian army finished by Christmas. I can generally paint one model batallion a night (24-30 figures) meaning I can finish one 60mm square base every 2 nights. Weekends are sometimes a bit more productive.

Baccus have also announced that work is about to commence on a new range of napoleonic British. I think this probably means that 2009 is taken care of!

Sunday, 28 September 2008

For a long while I have been flummoxed about representing the Landwehr and volunteer component of the 1809 Austrian army. The following shots show my attempt at producing the 1st Vienna Volunteers.Here is a close-up. Yes I have painted stripes on the flag pole!

The figures used are British infantry in Southern dress from the Baccus AWI range. While not an exact match for hat and cut of uniform I'm pretty pleased with how they have turned out. I'm just finishing off some regular troops to be brigaded with them on a base to represent part of Nordmann's advanced guard as Aspern-Essling.

I've also got round to basing up those 5 bases of French infantry for II Corps.

It is currently full speed ahead with Austrians to get the OOB up to the level of Aspern-Essling before pushing on to Wagram.

Saturday, 20 September 2008

Two bases freshly done, both of French legere to join II Corps. I have figures painted more-or-less for 5 more bases of infantry, they just need a few extra figures finishing off. After that, 3 more bases from scratch and II Corps is finished and I can get back to the Austrians! The next step is to get the forces assembled for Aspern-Essling, before pushing on to the full Wagram setup.

Monday, 8 September 2008

I hear Partizan was a good show, I didn't get to see much of it! There was loads of interest in the game I put on. Here are few pictures:

An Austrian KorpsA French Division

The Northern flanks at the end of the game, with the Austrian IV Korps falling back and the IR Korps putting in a final countercharge:

..and the Southern flank with the Austrian III Korps holding what is pretty close to its start position.Overall, the Austrian III and IV Korps attempted a pincer movement on the rapidly arriving and deploying French. IV Korps moved decisively against the French left but lost theri nerve, halted and then started a slow fall-bak that they never really recovered from. The arrival of reserves boosted the Austrian fortunes, but it took the reserve infantry 7 hours to march 2 miles, losing the initiative somewhat. In the centre, the Grenadier and Heavy Cavalry reserve made a late showing, inflicting substantial casualties on St Hilaire's veterans, but it was too little, too late. In the end the battle was a tactical score draw, but strategically there was no way to stop Davout from linking up with the rest of the French and Allied army.

Meanwhile, next to me was another 6mm napoleonic game, staged by Neil Shuck of "Meeples & Miniatures" and his gaming buddy Dave Luff. Their game was an introduction to 6mm naps gaming, using "Polemos:MDE" and utilising tropps and scenery readily available from traders at the show. A neat idea and well done:

Thursday, 28 August 2008

To kick off, here are some close ups of a building base so Braxen can see what it looks like unoccupied:and occupied by a French regiment:

These buildings will be part of the game I'll be staging at The Other Partizan at Kelham Hall near Newark, Notts on the 7th September. Also at the show as traders will be Baccus (who make the figures), Timecast (who make some of the buildings and supply me with some of my MDF bases) and ERM (who supply my other MDF bases)*

The game will feature a scenario based on the 19th April 1809 during the Danube campaign. In reality this day saw the Battle of Teugn-Hausen and some desultory skirmishing. The scenario for the show supposes that the Austrians were able to coordinate their forces a little better and launch a serious attack on Davout's French corps as it marched south from Regensberg to link-up with the rest of Napoleon's army.

I'm looking forward to meeting the readers of the blog on the day if any of you can make it. Please stop by, say hello and have a chat.

cheers

* Yes, Pete at Baccus also does MDF bases, but he has enough of my money already :-)

Tuesday, 26 August 2008

Hello again at last. Delays due to holidays, getting back to work, studying etc!

Here are two shots of my recently completed building bases. Each square contains a number of buildings and a "lift-off" 60mm square to allow troops to occupy the built-up area. I hope to add a further 4 bases to this before Partizan (i.e. in the next fortnight)

First shot shows complete bases:Then ready for occupation!

On the figure front I have finished enough French infantry for 5 bases (half of II Corps) and Austrian cuirassiers and dragoons for 1 base each. I just need to finish a base of Austrian grenadiers ready for the demo game at Partizan.

Tuesday, 22 July 2008

Well huzzah! (quite literally). I have got some more painting and basing done and finally got round to recharging the camera, so here are shots of the latest French cavalry, starting with a light cavalry general:and here are some light cavalry for him to order about (6th Hussars and 9th Chasseurs from the Army of Italy)

Bessires should be cheered up by the arrival of a second division of cuirassiers:

..and the French right flank at Wagram will be much more secure now that the dragoons have arrived (3 bases, representing the 2 brigades of Grouchy and Pully):

Monday, 21 July 2008

OK, having finished off the dragoons and cuirassiers as mentioned, i have knocked out a base of light cavalry comprising the 6th Hussars and 9th Chasseurs a Cheval.

All 6 bases have had sand glued on and will get a coat of ink tonight. Hopefully I can then get them drybrushed and flocked in time for photos on Tuesday night and maybe get some of them into a game on Wednesday.

I'm planning to sort out and prime the first batch of infantry for the French II Corps tonight. Probably enough for 4 or 5 bases of infantry.

I'm working on more small scenarios at present, based on Napoleon's north Italian battles. While it is nice to work towards Wagram etc, club nights are best suited to games of about a dozen bases a side (15-20,000 infantry, 2500-5,000 cavalry and supporting artillery). As with the earlier scenarios I'll post deteils here on the blog.

Monday, 14 July 2008

Another base-worth of dragoon figures finished! I just have another 20 or so dragoons to finish all of Grouchy's corps for Wagram. Then I can finish the basing on the dragoons and cuirassiers (and a couple of generals)

After this it looks like I'll be getting stuck into some more infantry. I'll probably look towards the II Corps (composed of a lot of under-strength 4th battalions). The laternative is to switch back to the Austrians. I'll see how I feel at the end of the week. Of course, I would need to order some more Austrians if I was going to paint them! Perhaps I'll just do the 1 base of grenadiers that I need (and have the figures for) and otherwise concentrate on the French.

Looking at the lead pile I have:Lots of Bavarians (but don't need more for Aspern or Wagram)Lots of French infantryQuite a lot of Austrian heavy cavalry/dragoons/chevauxlegerArtillery for Fr/Aust/Bav

Friday, 11 July 2008

We played out the "Oudinot Attacks" scenario at the club this week. Martin took the French and I had the Austrians.

Again, it proved a challenge for the French to manoevre their forces and then get an attack underway within the time limit. Next time they might do better to just get stuck in right away, rather than trying to turn an Austrian flank. Interstingly, both games so far have seen the French try a right-hook manoevre that has eithe not worked, or only come off at the very last minute.

I think we are all a bit cautious about losses too. I might set the game up at home over the weekend and see how a massed frontal attack goes!

Thursday, 3 July 2008

Here is a scenario I am working on. It is based on "1809" a scenario provided on the Grande Armee website. I have made some changes to suit it to my rules and based on a play-through at the club. It is intended to give a challenging game for each side while enabling the rules to be introduced in agame easily completable during a club-night.

Scenario 2

“Oudinot Attacks!”

Background

In this scenario, set in June 1809, General Oudinot has taken command of the French II Corps following the untimely death of Marshall Lannes at the Battle of Aspern-Essling.

Scouting North of the Danube has revealed what seems to be a route around the Austrian army. Napoleon had dispatched Oudinot to explore this potential avenue of attack, exploit it if possible and request reinforcement if a breakthrough seems possible.The French begin the scenario advancing from the South towards an Austrian covering force.

Victory:

The French break the Austrian army to win

The Austrians win by remaining unbroken at the end of the game.

Game specifics:

The game begins at 2pm and ends at 10pm. The weather is clear throughout. The battlefield measures 4 feet square

Reserve units may be permenantly attached to a division at the start of the game or remain independent. Independent units may not later attach themselves to a division.

Independent reserve units may be moved in a bound if within 8 distance units (DU=6cm) of the CinC at the cost of one command point. There is no need to roll on the command table and they may act as the CinC wishes.

Friday, 27 June 2008

Last week at the club we tried out the Gensbruck scenario again. It worked out as a sort of draw, with the French just about holding their grouns but being close to their breakpoint by the end.

I then tweaked the rules again, to speed up combat and create a few more casualties. I think they are just about there now, but need a bit of fine tuning. I've divided infantry into two types: massed (most) and linear (british, early prussians, etc) who vary slightly in the game; linear having an advantage when receiving attackers and massed being able to count a base in contact to the rear as support (if unshaken and facing the same way).

This week we played a scenario based on part of Wagram, around the villages of Aderklaa and Deutsch-Wagram. The french attacked with 2 french corps, the Saxon corps, a heavy cavalry division, a light cavalry division and the Imperial Guard. The Austrians defended with 2 line corps, a reserve of grenadiers and heavy cavalry and a division of reserve light cavalry. The scenario kicked off at 7am game time and we got to 2pm by the time we needed to pack up (about two and a half hours real time). The new combat rules worked well. I played the French and dithered a bit when I should really have used my infantry as more of a battering ram. The Saxons under Bernadotte were suitably inactive.I created arule on the fly allowing Archduke Charles to grab the reserve corps commander by the short & curlies to get his formation moving.In the end, daring Austrian counterattacks and a lack of aggression kept the French at bay for 7 hours!

I have taken a week off painting, but last night I cracked on again with those pesky French Cuirassiers!

Tuesday, 17 June 2008

Sadly for the Austrians they were unable to maintain their momentum. The arrival of the bavarians forced II Korps to about-face half of its strength and fighing on two fronts meant that it becmae fixed in place. Davout's artillery managed to break up I Korps sufficiently to keep it from making a decisive attack in the centre. The Autrian reserve, whilst powerful, was under the command of a cuation officer of the old school and steadfastly held position around Gensbruck rather than lending support to the hard-pressed I Korps. Evenbtually the French heavy cavalry worked its way arounf the Austrian left flank and delivered a devastating charge, sweeping away the Avant-garde and thretening the flank of I Korps. At this point, Arch duke Charles ordered his forces to fall-back.

Davout's III corps have been badly mauled, but the Austrians again missed the opportunity of delivering a decisive blow against the French.

Thursday, 12 June 2008

A demonstration by the Austrian Avant Garde pinned Davout's right on the hill, while I and II Korps advance on the French centre and left respectively. Unusually the Austrians managed to win the initiative on two of the five turns played so far, allowing them to catch the French on the hop to some extent. The avant garde got battered as they went without orders for much of the morning, owing to Archduke Charles's need to get II Korps moving.

Davout has been forced to pull his entire corps back onto the hill, to establish a stronger defensive position and await his reinforcements.

The Austrian Reserve Korps has just arrived on the table and is slowly advancing towards the action. The initial orders for the Austrians have now run out, so the cautious natures of some of their officers will begin to feature. So far they have done well, but will it prove to be enough? Davout's reinforcements are just 45 minutes away!

Losses so far are a grenzer brigade and avant-guard general for the Austrians and a French infantry brigade and artillery battery from Davout's force.

Wednesday, 11 June 2008

D'oh. Owing to a cock-up by the staff officers down at the club I dodn't get a game in after all. No matter, I set up the scenario in my garage and managed to get a piccie before I lost the light completely. I also now get to watch the final of "The Apprentice" rather than having to catch it later on Sky+ !

So here are some tropps set out on a few of my home-made terrain tiles. All in all I think they look quite spiffy and I am very pleased with them. I'm still finishing off some that have bits of Danube flowing through them, but I nearly have all the board now done for Wagram. I'm just going to do a few extra ones with generic "big hills" on so that I can use them for a variety of other scenarios.

I'm just off down to the club to (hopefully) play the following scenario. It is a hypothetical battle set in the 1809 Danube campaingn, between the bavarian phase and the Aspern and Wagram phase. Commanders are rated for competence & command ability (first number) and command radius (second number, measured in base-widths). I'm experimenting with not limiting each commander to dividing thier force into a maximum number of "divisions", but letting the game mechanics create a balance between the flexibility of separating brigades for movement and the security of grouping them together for support in combat. Anyway, here we go (I'll report on how it turns out):

The Battle of Gensbruck

1st May 1809

Background (hypothetical)

Following the Battle of Eckmuhl (Eggmuhl) the bulk of the Austrian army had retreated eastwards towards Vienna along the north bank of the Danube. The movements of the Austrians were closely shadowed by Marshal Davout and his III Corps while the larger portion of the Grande Armee pushed along the southern bank in an effort to reach Vienna first.On the evening of the 30th April, Davout had made camp around the village of Chomp, north of the town of Gensbruck. It was here that the Archduke Charles opted to counter-attack. A scratch force was assigned to an advance guard and these troops crossed the River Gens at Gensbruck under the cover of darkness, closely followed by I Korps. II Korps meanwhile marched by way of Dungolfing, some 6 miles upstream to outflank the French forces.

As the 1st May dawned, French scouts reported back to Davout that he had Austrian forces approaching from two directions. Quickly the “iron marshal” sent word of his plight to nearby forces, Wrede’s Bavarians who had marched on ahead of III Corps and Nansouty’s heavy cavalry division who had been following up in the rear. These forces would, however, take some time to reach the battlefield. In the meantime, III Corps would just have to hold on.

Scenario details

The scenario starts at 8am and finishes at 5pm. The weather is clearBridges may be crossed by a maximum of 4 units of any side in any single game turn

The battle is fought on a 6' x 4' table. Austrian commanders can ignore "cautious" status until their force contacts the enemy (attacked by or attacks enemy by skirmishing, bombardment or close combat), to reflect the issuing of pre-battle orders.

French Forces(Break Point 4 units until 12 noon and BP 7 units once reinforced)

Sunday, 8 June 2008

Corps commander (Bernadotte) and reserve artillery:Garde grenadiers, line grenadiers and schutzen (light infantry) in a combined brigade:A brigade of grenadiers with schutzen in front:Cavalry brigade of cuirassiers in front and chevauxlegers behind: Second cavalry brigade with Garde cavalry in front and a rear rank of chevauxleger and hussars (2 shots of the same base):

3 Line infantry brigades, still in their 18th Century-style uniforms and linear formations:

...and something I prepared earlier, a French brigade that I had painted up (but not based) just before Partizan

So now the much maligned Saxon infantry and their superb cavalry can take to the field to restore their reputation (if Bernadotte actually gets them there)

Thursday, 5 June 2008

This was my bargain at the car boot sale last Bank Holiday. Admittiedly it looked a bit different then, being an ivory coloured, fairy-tale concoction.

The model was put onto a larger card base (it is cast onto a sort of plinth), the edges built up with polyfilla and the basework completed with sand and fence-paint to match my terrain boards. The castle itself was sprayed chocolate brown then drybrushed with a stone-colured paint all over. The walls were washed with a brown/black/pva mix and the roof with a grey/green/pva mix. Total time under an hour (apart from drying time).

Tuesday, 3 June 2008

Sunday, 1 June 2008

Over the half-term week I have been progressing with the Saxon corps of Napoleon's army of 1809. I am using Prussian napoleonic figures from Baccus for most of the Saxons, so much of the painting in the following picture has been completed since last Sunday (as usual, figures are from Baccus):

..the exceptions being the French infantry and the officers lurking at the back of the shot. In total there are 12 officers, 42 cavalry, 196 infantry and 2 guns with 8 crew shown above.

To complete the corps I have three units of 20 grenadiers and a unit of lieb-guard grenadiers (24 figs) [all austrian grenadier figures] on the table at the moment, along with 12 schutzen (prussian skirmisher figures). Hopefully these will get done this week and I can base up the corps next weekend. I must then stop procrastibating over the French cuirassiers :-)

Painting the Saxon infantry has reminded me just how much quicker it is to paint troops in white uniforms!

Tuesday, 27 May 2008

The church at Aspern burned down at the Battle of Aspern-Essling, however it formed a key defensive position at the battle and I really wanted a model of it.

I stumbled across this resin version on the Magister Militum website. It is part of the JR models range (which includes the Essling Granary) but is listed as a small cathedral. Having compared it to contemporary paintings it looks pretty close.

I've given it quite a pale colour scheme as shown in some paintings, although it is possible that all, or parts, of it were more grey.

I have given the model a base of MDF with added Timecast walls and trees, big enough to accomodate one 60mm square base of troops.

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About Me

Member of the Newark Irregulars wargaming club since 1996, gaming since about 1984. I co-wrote the WAB supplement "The Age of Arthur" with my good friend James Morris. I'm interested in most wargaming periods but my favourites are AWI and Grand-tactical Napoleonics.
1 wife, 2 daughters, 2 guinea pigs.